U.S. Android user numbers surpass Windows Mobile, gaining on iOS

Sure, activating 200,000 phones per day is great, but what really matters at the end of the day is how many of your devices are in the hands of consumers. Well, new numbers have come out from ComScore and they are impressive to say the least. For the three-month period between April and July (that's May, June, and July folks), Android saw its active user marketshare in the U.S. rise from 12 percent to 17 percent. The total number of active smartphones in the U.S. came in just under 54 million, so this translates to about 9.2 million Americans on Android phones at the end of July.

Now, there are a couple important points to note here. First, the major Android devices launched during this time were the Droid Incredible (end of April) and the Evo 4G (beginning of June). Finally, nearly all the OS's saw increases of sales year-over-year, but Android is growing at a much faster rate than the competition. Still, Android had huge gains on the back of HTC during the period and everyone over at Google should be more than pleased. Something tells me the numbers for this current quarter will blow that 17 percent out of the water. [ComScore]

CORRECTION: Everyone lost ground except Android & Palm.. which is pretty impressive, since Palm hasn't had any new hardware in a very long time! Wait until HP throws it's weight behing the upcoming WebOS 2.0 & new hardware....

I understand the temptation to switch. My wife has 2.1 & it's nice, but still a bit complicated & bulky for the masses. Don't get me wrong, it's still a great mobile OS, but reminds me too much of Windows back in the day. Windows was a phenominal success story, but took YEARS to achieve the simplicity & elegance of Win7 (at least compared to past OS versions... of course, it did win out early on, so it's still a favorible comparison for Google). If Google can simplify things a bit, it wil take a giant leap forward... that's when Apple should worry. Until then, I don't buy that they are unstoppable! Give the masses great hardware with a simple but powefull OS (such as WebOS), market it right, & suddenly there is competition... especially if a solid play is made for RIMs marketshare! BB owners are dying to jump ship...

By the way... the numbers above support this. Where has Android picked up most of it's market share from? WinMo! Talk about a dying, decrepid, and complicated OS! Who wouldn't leave that garbage! Compared to WinMo, Android is light years ahead & easily available on good hardware @ an affordable price. Make serious dents in iOS users & I will be really impressed (their growth has only slowed... not stopped... considdering they are only on 1 carrier, not that impressive).